Israel to demand adjustment of Quartet Mideast peace plan, official says ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Barak Ravid - October 3, 2011 - 12:00am While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Sunday that he welcomed "the Quartet's call for direct negotiations between the parties without preconditions," the premier intends to present a list of qualifications to the Quartet's statement on a resumption of Mideast talks that in effect enfeeble that statement. » Read more

Where Do We Go from Here? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Policy by Hussein Ibish - (Opinion) September 30, 2011 - 12:00am In a perfunctory meeting on Wednesday morning, Sept. 28, as expected, and per its usual procedure for dealing with would-be new United Nations members since the late 1960s, the Security Council referred the Palestinian application to one of its standing committees. The committee -- which meets and votes in secret and requires unanimity to refer the matter back to the Security Council -- is scheduled to begin considering the application on Friday morning. The membership process usually takes weeks, but can take only days (as with the most recent U.N. » Read more

Why Israel can't be a 'Jewish State' ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Jazeera English (Opinion) September 30, 2011 - 12:00am The Israeli government's current mantra is that the Palestinians must recognise a "Jewish State". Of course, the Palestinians have clearly and repeatedly recognised the State of Israel as such in the 1993 Oslo Accords (which were based on an Israeli promise to establish a Palestinian state within five years - a promise now shattered) and many times since. Recently, however, Israeli leaders have dramatically and unilaterally moved the goal-posts and are now clamouring that Palestinians must recognise Israel as a "Jewish State". » Read more

Hamas is 'backing protesters' says Syria ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National by Phil Sands - October 2, 2011 - 12:00am Damascus // Syria's relationship with Hamas is increasingly strained over the Palestinian group's refusal to openly endorse Damascus and its tactics in suppressing an anti-regime uprising, according to figures close to both sides. Once firm allies, the Syrian authorities, led by President Bashar Al Assad, and the Islamic resistance movement, headed by Khalid Meshaal from his headquarters in Damascus, are now barely on speaking terms, regime officials and an Islamic cleric close to Hamas said. » Read more

How the GOP has learned to love Israel unconditionally ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) by Ron Kampeas - September 28, 2011 - 12:00am WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Republican presidents have been guiding Israel toward the peace table -- sometimes not so gently -- almost since the Jewish state was born more than six decades ago. But in the recent round of debates, the crop of candidates vying for the GOP nomination have been chiding President Obama for forcing Israel’s hand -- usually to great cheers from the audience. "You don’t allow an inch of space to exist between you and your friends and allies," former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said at the most recent debate, Sept. 22 in Orlando, Fla., earning thunderous applause. » Read more

It's now time for the West to recognise Palestinian statehood ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Sydney Morning Herald by Malcolm Fraser - (Opinion) October 4, 2011 - 12:00am The arguments against recognition of a Palestinian state seem to rest on the simple proposition that agreement must be reached through negotiation and that a resolution granting statehood would set that process back. If that argument was valid it would have been true in 1948 when the United Nations recognised Israel as an independent state. People should then have argued the Israelis must negotiate with the Palestinians, the people who were being pushed out, and once they had come to an agreement, we could recognise Israel. » Read more

Food and Palestinian Identity ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jewish Daily Forward by Renee Ghert-Zand - (Blog) October 3, 2011 - 12:00am It all started in 1996, when Liora Gvion first wondered why the food served at a local restaurant in an Arab-Israeli town with a primarily Arab-Israeli clientele was the same as what was on the menu of Arab-owned restaurants that catered to Jewish Israelis. The sociologist of food, who lectures at the Kibbutzim College of Education and the Hebrew University, spent the next ten years, off and on, trying to figure out why this was so. » Read more

Palestinian Building Boom in West Bank ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line by Arieh O'Sullivan - October 2, 2011 - 12:00am There is a Palestinian building boom going on in the West Bank that has increased the number of dwellings in the past four years by over 25%, according to the latest figures released by the Palestinian Authority (PA) on Sunday. » Read more

Palestinian leader Abbas to propose early presidential, parliamentary elections: official ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua October 2, 2011 - 12:00am RAMALLAH, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- President Mahmoud Abbas will soon propose to the Islamic Hamas Movement to hold early presidential and parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories, a senior Palestinian official said Sunday. Jamal Mheisen, member of Abbas' Fatah Party's Central Committee, told the "Voice of Palestine" radio that the idea of holding early elections "aims to get the Palestinian people out of the crisis of internal division." » Read more

Say no to rabbis’ racism ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews by Avi Yesawich - (Opinion) October 3, 2011 - 12:00am It’s difficult for me not to hold a sense of warped admiration for some of the prominent Orthodox rabbis here in Israel. The level of ignorance that many in the rabbinical establishment display in social, political and military affairs never ceases to astonish. Their indissoluble faith in God, Judaism and the Torah grants them the profound audacity to make declarations that surpass any statement that a well-educated, secular individual would have the courage to say even in the privacy of their closest associates, much less to the international media. » Read more